This would transport upto two thirty tonne boats across four light years, give or take.

The boats would have to be self contained, to be able to withstand a week's worth of transdimensional travel.

On arrival, the boats would disengage, and proceed within the system traffic rules, to their destinations, since they're usually faster than two gees. The now monomaran can accelerate at two and a half gees to the next gas station and pickup point.

You basically attach two luxuriously outfitted passenger modules. One could a an upgraded first class passenger lounge, that's five passenger staterooms, five tonnes of cargo, one stateroom for the cabin crew, and one tonne docking clamp, for safety.

The other module would be the owner's, so that would be a ten tonne bedroom suite, presumably four tonnes of cargo, a steward/chef's cabin of four tonnes, a one tonne docking clamp, and eleven tonnes of hot tubs, kitchen, gaming room, dining room, and so on.

I'm inclined to think that the Solomani Navy and Confederation Marines would have a standard black uniform, which I would have arrived independently at, without input from Weber.

First of all, even with modern stain-free materials, less likely to note wrinkles, even in wrinkle free cloth, and there's a simple elegance in it; also, great camouflage in space, not so great if you happen to be overboard, and would like someone to notice you.

But, having been given the roles and duties of what's normally the province o the Scout Service, if the Navy interacts a great deal with the public, the crew would be colour coded on top:

Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines like to have good-natured fun at each others’ expense. But the distinct mentalities between the branches can create real problems. One U.S. Army manual offered candid notes for commandos on how to deal with their own brothers and sisters in arms.

Outwardly, the so-called “Special Forces Advisor’s Reference Book” focuses on the complexities of working with foreign troops, civilians and non-governmental organizations. But tucked away near the end of the main text, the authors included a detailed section on the “service culture” of other U.S. troops.

In short, the Army is great, according to the handbook. But the Marines are elitists who think they’re better than everyone else. The Air Force is dominated by pilots who believe they can win wars with technology alone. And the Navy is full of hidebound traditionalists who are resistant to change.
...
In 2001, a company called Research Planning, Inc. delivered the first copies of the handbook to the Army’s top special operations command. The guide was supposed to be a handy reference for both war games and actual missions.

“This reference book is intended to provide a problem solving ready reference for [Special Forces] soldiers assigned as advisors or liaisons,” the manual stated. “The success SF has enjoyed as advisors and liaisons is directly attributable to the cross-cultural skills.”

Historically, one of the Green Berets’ main jobs is training friendly troops and guerrillas in hot spots around the world. In March, Gen. Joseph Votel, then head of the Pentagon’s main commando headquarters, said that “on any given day” almost 10,000 American special operators can be found in more than 80 countries.

When working with allies, “teams and advisors often occupy a very sensitive position,” the guidebook added. “In many situations, the commander and his team must be diplomats as well as military advisors.”
But the authors were well aware that commandos will have to negotiate relationships with other American troops with different histories and institutional cultures — which can often clash with how the Army prefers to conduct missions.

In drafting the manual, the South Carolina-based researchers dug into all the information they could quickly find about the different military branches. Research Planning, Inc. then did a cross-cultural analysis of each branch like they were distinct ethnic groups.

Not surprisingly, the overview of the company’s client, the Army, is relatively positive.

The first word the writers used to describe the ground combat branch was egalitarianism. “The Army tends to distrust and discourage elites,” the authors posited. “The Army, more so than the other services, deeply feels its attachment to the people of the country.”

Unlike the Air Force or Navy, the Army is focused more on people than weapons, vehicles or other gear, according to the manual. And the service’s soldiers best understand the need to work with their cousins across the Pentagon.

And “despite a brief flirtation with ‘battle calculus,’ the Army remains adverse to reliance on mathematical models and other purely quantitative tools to predict outcomes or evaluate combat capability,” the handbook declared. “This flows naturally from its human focus.”

In contrast, Research Planning described the Navy as rigid and inflexible, with long-standing traditions informing decisions. The sailing branch expects sailors and officers to understand their place.
Calling the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat a ‘Frigate’ Doesn’t Make It Any Less Crappy

“The Navy is scrupulously rank and specialty conscious, the guidebook explained. “Directly opposite the Army’s egalitarianism, the Navy maintains and fosters distinctions between specialties … Every attempt should be made to articulate ideas and concepts in a manner consistent with existing Naval thinking.”

When working with the Navy, Army commandos should try to avoid proposals that require “innovation or change.” Green Berets have a better chance of convincing the Navy to adopt a plan if they frame their role as supporting sea-going missions rather than taking over command.

The researchers reached similar conclusions about the Air Force, describing the service as being led by pilots and technocrats. As the youngest of America’s military services, the flying branch is always looking to prove the legitimacy of its independence from the Army.

Historians and other critics have regularly challenged the notion that the Air Force needs to exist as a separate branch. The Air Force is also technology-driven more than the other branches. “The AF tends to view warfare as dominated by technology,” the guidebook stated.

“Applications of technology are viewed as providing answers to most, if not all, problems associated with warfare (if not national security) … This reliance on high cost, low-density equipment has obvious implications for risk acceptance.”

Still, this means the Air Force is far and away the best at finding and destroying targets. Unfortunately, this skill has in turn created an institutional focus that is often blind to other considerations.

“It is almost a presumption … that destruction of adequate numbers of appropriately selected targets will achieve operational and strategic objectives,” the handbook stated. The human dimension of warfare, excepting pilots, are “generally subordinated to quantifiable target destruction.”

At the very end, the writers saved one of their most pointed criticisms for the Marine Corps. Though technically subordinate to the Department of the Navy, the leathernecks have a proud and functionally independent history that claims some of the oldest traditions among the services.

“Elitism,” was how Research Planning described the Marines. “The USMC considers itself to be superior, both individually and institutionally, to the other services and the Army in particular.”
The Marines have a long and complicated history with the Pentagon’s top special operations command. When the Army’s commandos received the manual in 2001, the Corps was still resisting the idea that it had to cede any elite troops to the command.

But with its own internal air arm and close working relationship with the Navy, the leathernecks often see no need to work with the other services, according to the handbook. In particular, “Marine air assets are only ceded to the control of a Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) under duress,” the researchers noted.

The authors suggested Army commandos simply stress that they weren’t going anywhere whether the Marines liked it or not — rather than point out what they could offer.

According to the reference guide, Marines were unlikely to accept the idea that Army commandos could provide skills the Corps didn’t already possess.

“SF soldiers working with USMC elements should be aware that the Marines are likely to genuinely feel that the SF and SOF communities possess no capability not resident in the Corps.”

An appendix in the manual provides descriptions of other offices in the Pentagon, elements of the Department of State and other segments of the U.S. government. However, it doesn’t offer any descriptions of these groups’ internal culture or suggestions on how to interact with their employees.

Still, it’s easy to see why the Army and the Pentagon wanted to stress that the guide’s analysis was not an official viewpoint. But while Research Planning was blunt in its assessment, the guidebook did hit upon real issues within the halls of the Pentagon.

“The Army has doctrine, the Navy has tradition and the Air Force is new,” John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, is fond of saying. And all of these factors inform different priorities and broad ideas of warfare that are unlikely to go away any time soon.

Good thing the Solomani got rid of the Air Force, oh, so many millenia ago.

Confederation Marines, unlike their Imperium counterparts, are pretty much reliant on Navy support personnel and infrastructure, though they maintain their attitude regarding their value when things go to hell at close quarters; the exception would be when they garrison Naval Depots, and the division stationed in the Home system.

Outside of the space transportation and ortillery the Navy provides, the Solomani Army would like to remain as independent of the Navy as possible.

The entire entity is referred to as The Corps, even if eventually personnel would number more than army groups.

Each military district has a divisional command, and an additional one for Home. This is due to the rather distributed nature of subordinate commands, mostly brigades, that are centered around Fleet Squadrons, and decentered around subsectors. The Home Division is primarily concerned with the security of the naval bases there in general, and that of the Secretary General in particular, resembling a really heavily reinforced army division.

Brigades are field organizations. The numbered ones correspond with the Fleet Squadrons they are attached to, the named ones with the subsectors where they coordinate Marine units operating within there, outside of those attached to Fleet Squadrons. Brigades attached to (super)Carrier Squadrons are named after the carrier task group.

Battalions sound more modular, but I thought about, and eventually came to the conclusion that with a three or six year enlistment, you aren't likely to be transferred around. So since I envision Solomani fast battleships to be larger than their Imperium counterparts, they are assigned Confederation Marine regiments, which range in size from one to two thousand Marines, not counting Navy support personnel. They are numbered, but may adopt nicknames.

Major naval bases are assigned regiments for security. Command cruisers are assigned regiments as well, but only tend to retain a company for shipboard security, the rest are parcelled out amongst the attached escorts, minor combatants, and organic support and auxiliary vessels.

(Provisional) Battalions are temporary organizations drawn totally or partially from one or more regiments, for missions lasting longer than can viably be directly supervised from their parental units. They can be numbered, named after their commanding officer, or area of operation. It was either that or battlegroups.

It seems obvious that the Solomani Navy won't build hulls below hundred thousand tonnes, and above five thousand, which leaves that gap in capabilities and roles that would usually be filled by ships weighing in the the ten to hundred thousand tonne range.

This fits in with making their investments in major combatants, way major combatants, very survivable, and if the rest are egg shells, at five thousand tonnes they're survivable enough against small fry, and could be locked together with docking clamps to bulk up into larger modular ships. This would work out well in peacetime deployments, perhaps a little over vulnerable major conflicts.

So power generation is eighteen and three quarter scotts per tonne, at one and a quarter megaschmuckers, compared to tech level fifteen power plants that generate twenty scotts at two megaschmuckers per tonne.

It became clear to the Solomani Naval Staff that they were conducting the conflict with a serious handicap, of insufficient capital class sized hulls to balance off Imperium battle lines.

The Hamster class pocket battleship was designed and buil in the latter half of the Solomani Rim War, when the Confederation Navy desperately needed major combatants to match the numbers that were starting to appear on the Imperium's side.

Buller AstroDynamics were contracted to rapidly produce a series of cruisers that would take advantage of off the shelf tech level thirteen components, as the tech level fourteen manufacturing lines were reserved to building fast battleships and cutting edge fighter craft.

Built around two Victory jump drive modules and the largest railgun in existence, just the rumour of their passages through the Imperium hinterland caused massive diversions of Imperium Navy's major combatants from the frontlines to intercept them; in battles, they were committed only once both sides were engaged, as their primary weapon system was only effective at medium range.

The hulls have been generally described as hunks of metal, whose primary function was to anchor the ship systems, and absorb punishment, while the weapon systems would be optimized for a likely short engagemnt, before the larger ships of the Imperium Navy mission killed them.

Are you curious as to the specifications of this fascinating class? Me too.

After having read the second edition of Mother Goose, the Solomani Naval Staff decided they would never build any hull below a hundred thousand tonnes.

But what kind of hull would be best suited for their urgently needed pocket battleship?

The reasons for having a minimum of a hundred kay displacement are obvious, because their primary role would be reinforcing the line of battle, whereas the Imperium Navy Office of Naval Intelligence got it wrong and thought the class was optimized for commerce raiding, though it could perform this mission.

In the fifth millenia, second class line of battleships weigh in at two hundred kay tonnes, so anything have that size would fit in with a pocket adjective, as opposed to a modernized armoured cruiser at around fifty to seventy five thousand tonnes, which would be geared towards long range commerce raiding.

You next have to select the hull configuration; cheapest and easiest would be liberating an asteroid from it's orbital prison, and for the mere price of four kay schmuckers per tonne, by gutting the insides, which is like, eight percent of the cost of taking the time to build a carapace; unfortunately you lose twenty percent of the volume for a mere gain of that saving plus two armour class.

That would make nickel steel armour five percent volume per armour class.

It might be easier just to make cast nickel steel hulls, leaving the inside hollow like an Easter chocolate egg.

Twenty percent, or more precisely, seventeen and a half percent volume loss, is too great.

If the majority of the hull was built gravitationless, it would cost only twenty five kay per tonne, half of a gravitated one. And that's before you have to add fifty percent for reinforcing the hull.

Why is this important? Because the hamster is supposed to be able to absorb damage, and while I don't see it mentioned, I bet massive repairs and replacement of major components from planetoid must be a headache.

As some may have guessed, the class's name is eponymous to a form of hull subsystem; I was thinking the hull actually rotates, whereas the crew area remains on the same plane, like a gondola on a zeppelin; battle stations would have the crew distributed inside the hull.

However, bearing in mind the Azhanti High Lightning controversy, I think their internal configuration is a pancake stack, networked with elevator banks.

Using more or less one gee constant acceleration for routine manoeuvres, the crew won't miss the artificial gravity.

Since the default tech level is thirteen, explosively discarding drop tanks is still an iffy manoeuvre, and leaving them attached is not exactly a safe option in battle.

It would provide that extra range.

If you equip them with five tech level thirteen Victory jump modules, they could push a one twenty five kay hull four parsecs, and with an integral thirty kay tank, you'd need another twenty kay in drop tankage, and you could attach another five kay tonne module; or smallcraft.

That would make them a credible commerce raider, at least during the period of the War of Imperium Aggression.

Largest jump drive the Solomani manufacture, configured as an interchangeable module, and uniformly sized at two thousand five hundred and five tonnes, regardless of tech level of production, or features incorporated.

Available to selected commercial entities, though most variants are open source.

I've established that the Solomani Navy preferred hull configuration is that of a Star Destroyer, at least for their capital sized ships.

Which if completely streamlined, might cost the Solomani twenty percent more for the hull, but gives them far more options as to what they can do with their vessels.

But would that be the case for the Hamster class pocket battleship? Looking up all the possibilities, a close structure, with a ten percent discount, but a ten percent increase in hull points and partial streamlining seems the best choice.

There are two type of movement that we're going to be interested in: tactical and strategic.

Strategic is what you'd expect the primary fleet units to achieve, which at this point is at least three parsecs, with four somewhat luxurious. The Solomani certainly pushed that with the introduction of fast battleships, but a limited industrial base means that those high tech production facilities would be reserved to build or repair their Prometheus, Beijings, and F-22 Raptors.

Tech level thirteen introduces jump factor four; three parsecs is enough to keep up with the fleet, at least for the Solomani, which would have a collection of ships built by their member worlds mixed in with those built under the direct supervision of Confederation; three might also be enough for over the border cattle raids. The primary role of the Hamster class pocket battleship is to reinforce the line of battle, commerce raiding is essentially a secondary role to panic the Imperials at opportune moments.

Commerce raiding for an actual capital ship is unlikely to incur a risk with a close confrontation of a warship that could match it in firepower, which allows the addition of rather vulnerable drop tanks to fuel that extra parsec; it does require that Hamster class be fitted with Victory modules that are uniformly capable of jumping four parsecs.

Vanguard elements would pin Imperial units, allowing Hamsters to catch up and hammer the Imperials on the anvil of the line of battle.

I think the minimum speed you need is factor five, and at one twenty five kay, you'd be reduced to four, which is probably acceptable, if you can spot anything with a large spinal mount approaching, and have enough time for a getaway.